


Boys, Bouquets, and a Button

by shou



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Dialogue Light, Flowers, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Sappy, THE DUMB FLUFF FIC FT FLOWERS AND FTM HINATA AKA MY HEART, Third Year Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7620019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shou/pseuds/shou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata keeps getting these really elaborate bouquets. <br/>He's really gay for Kageyama, but this guy from his class is the one to confess to him. <br/>He struggles, there's some misunderstandings (because who would I be as a writer without those), but it all works out in the end. <br/></p><p>
  <i>-</i>
</p><p><i>They are pretty obviously confession flowers, what with the little index card tied to one of the ribbons reading: </i>I really like your smile<i>. The words make Hinata’s stomach do flip-flops, and his heart won’t stop fluttering. Of course, silently, and only to himself, he wishes that there was a certain teammate’s name signed, but… the printed lettering is generic type, and there is no hand writing to go off of. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lmao what the fucc is this  
> Hate™ Myself™   
> who needs actual writing when u can just.... spout out this   
> crispy, this 4 u babe happy 3 month haikyuuversary i mEAN uh anniversary because wow three months of dating what the hecky

The first bouquet appears a week after their first practice match (against Aoba Johsai, thanks to the mended relationship between Karasuno’s official setter and Seijoh’s newly appointed, spikey-haired captain), not even a month into their third year. It shows up in Hinata’s locker, the flowers a little wilted and their leaves a bit crunched, but the smile that lights up the boy’s face is so ridiculously wide that the bent stems and bruised petals don’t matter. His team mates cheer when they see it, half the first years’ eyes big and round, the other half throwing their senpai thumbs up and matching smirks. The second years smile and cheer, while their captain just shoves his glasses up higher and sniffs. Hinata is flustered at the particular brand of attention, but glows nonetheless. The only one who doesn’t really react is Kageyama, standing off to the side as he yanks his kneepads off and tosses them into his bag. 

“They’re just flowers, I don’t see the big deal,” is his response when Hinata pokes at him, receiving a pout from the shrimpy ace and an indignant whine. 

To Hinata, they aren’t _just flowers._ He’s received a grand total of zero confessions in his life, compared to Kageyama’s three in the first month of their third year alone! (Hinata regrets coaching Kageyama on his smile big time.) He knows it probably has something to do with the fact he’s always been forgetful at looking at girls, he’s always been too familiar with them, not how boys normally are. He had a big time crush on Suga-san in first year (who _didn’t?)_ and Kageyama had teased him endlessly for it, but he knows… confessions don’t really come around to guys like him. 

But those flowers…

They are pretty obviously confession flowers, what with the little index card tied to one of the ribbons reading: _I really like your smile._ The words make Hinata’s stomach do flip-flops, and his heart won’t stop fluttering. Of course, silently, and only to himself, he wishes that there was a certain teammate’s name signed, but… the printed lettering is generic type, and there is no hand writing to go off of.

And the bouquet…

The whole thing is bound up with white tissue paper, all crisp and smelling the way new paper does, bunching at the base of the bouquet where it is tied with ten pale green ribbons. It’s bigger than his face, too, all blues and gold and white. The darker blue flowers all have round petals that are softer than velvet when Hinata brushes his nose against them. The lighter ones are fluttery and golden in the center, with no individual petals, spiraled lines twirling toward the edges, their curing vines draping over the paper. The white flowers are little, puffy clouds of tiny stars, and the golden are larger stars, their leaves pointy and sharp. It is… the perfect bouquet, to Hinata. He cradles it to his chest on his way home, ignoring Kageyama’s raised eyebrow. 

Exactly a week later, he finds an identical bouquet found in the exact same place, only this time right before school instead of after evening practice. This time, it’s fresher, and the note is in silver hand writing. The hand writing looks… familiar… but it is over exaggerated and formal, and Hinata can’t figure out where he has seen it before. 

This time, the note reads: _I would be happy to watch you fly forever._

And, okay, that is _really_ sweet. It makes Hinata daydream in class, doodling crappy flower doodles on the edges of his English worksheet. Unfortunately, he receives a sharp pencil jab to the back from his desk neighbor when he fails to even react to the teacher questioning him. 

The thing is, Hinata’s torn between living his own personal fantasies for a moment and listening to the voice of reason that shows up every now and then in his head. Because while he wants so badly for those flowers to be from the grumpy setter he calls his best friend, he knows that isn’t exactly an option. Hinata _knows_ Kageyama, and Kageyama definitely doesn’t have a crush on him, no matter how much Hinata dreams about it (which was a lot.) 

Hinata keeps the notecards in his school bag, pulling them out in class and at lunch to gaze at them with a giddy grin, even if it means he has to avoid a jab to the head from Kageyama. Stupid Bakageyama is just jealous of Hinata’s nice presents!

The third bouquet is a week later, with the note reading: _I enjoyed silence until I met you._ It makes him want to get all teary for a moment. Does this person know how self conscious his chatter makes him sometimes, or are they just… nice?

And then a fourth. _You’ll make it to the top of the world one day._ (Tadashi _oohs_ at that one, because they’ve talked about their dreams on their sleepovers, and that… well. The top of the world? Hinata would sell his soul to get there.) 

A fifth. _You’ve always been an ace in my eyes._ (The entire damn team starts to get suspicious at that one, because that’s obvious volleyball jargon that’s implying a long time friendship, or at least acquaintanceship, but nobody on the team looks guilty, so maybe the girls’ team?) 

Sixth. _Your existence makes me believe in angels._ (Hinata can’t even show that one to anyone, but he texts Kenma about it later, and Kenma says they must really like Hinata. Hinata blushes all day long.) 

Seventh. _You are the last minute winning spike at Nationals._ (That’s even more volleyball related, but there were people to watch them at Nationals, and first year _had_ been his spike that won Karasuno’s name back among the stars.) 

Eighth. _I never miss the sun in winter, thanks to you._ (Hinata doodles cartoon suns and snowflakes and daydreams about having glowing hair for the rest of the day because of those words.) 

The ninth bouquet’s notecard reads: _I want to be the one to stand by your side forever._ (It makes him think of the words _invincible,_ and a promise that likely only he remembers.) 

The day ninth bouquet that appears is the one that marks the shift in so many things, and the beginning of the two months that neither Hinata nor Kageyama will ever look back upon with anything but cringing regret. 

Because the day Hinata receives the ninth bouquet is the day he receives his first in person confession.

Hinata and Kageyama are bickering about Interhigh when it happens (they’d lost to Seijoh, which brought back painful memories and a night of sleeping on Kageyama’s room floor, back to back as they pretended not to cry. They ended up curled around each other by morning.) They’re shoulder to shoulder under Hinata’s umbrella to hide from the August morning rain. But when they reach the gym, there’s a familiar blond haired boy standing there, looking completely at ease and smiling in a way that makes Hinata a little curious and a little confused. He knows him, they’re in homeroom class together, and they even get along pretty well. (Sora also caught him with his shirt off in the clubroom on the day Kageyama had been sick last year, and he kept that whole thing a secret, so Hinata likes him. He’s suspicious of him, because he’s sort of like the Great King and that guy is Hinata’s enemy _big time,_ but he likes him.)

“Hiya Sora-kun!” Hinata greets him with a smile and a wave, to which Sora’s easy smile grows even wider. 

“Hey there, Shouyou. I was hoping to catch you before practice, looks like I’m in luck!” There is a lilting cadence to Sora’s voice that makes Hinata feel like his words are rehearsed to perfection. He’s a little jealous, because he still stutters sometimes. 

“What’re you doi–” 

“What do you want with Hinata.” 

Hinata jumps at the tone of Kageyama’s voice, because he knows that tone, he’s heard it a million times. It’s the tone used against him in junior high, the one used when people try intimidating them at matches, the one he even used on a rival team when they cornered one of the first years and he had started to cry. 

“I just wanted to borrow him for a few minutes.” 

Hinata can literally feel Kageyama’s aura darken and turn into that scary cloud, and he’s genuinely confused how Sora isn’t running for the hills. Hinata has been the target of the Kageyama glare about a million and three times, he knows what it is like.

“You have practice, I won’t keep you long!” Sora promises, and the way he’s smiling in an almost sheepish way, warm and a light, and it’s lost the rehearsed feel.

“Kageyama, I’ll be just a sec! Tell Tadashi I’m busy, kay? He’ll tell Tsukki and if Tadashi is telling him, Tsukki won’t be annoyed!” Hinata says to soothe his seething partner, one hand on Kageyama’s arm as he gently pushes him to the gym door, sticking his head in briefly to say to Haruto and Minoru as the second years tie their shoes by the door. “Heya, Noru, could you make sure Kageyama goes to talk to Tadashi-kun?” he politely ignores Kageyama squawk of indigence as he’s suddenly being escorted by his kouhai, and Hinata has to laugh as he watches Minoru bodily shove Kageyama along, Haruto nervously following behind and wringing his hands. But finally he can close the door, and he’s free to turn around and give his full attention to Sora. 

“Kageyama-kun is as scary as I remember, then!” 

Hinata laughs at that, because he’s in good spirits, and Sora’s smile is really, _really_ attractive. “Heh, yep! Well, he looks scary, but he’s really just a big dork!” 

“I’m sure he is,” Sora laughs again, but then his laugh dies down and he’s stepping close to Hinata, his smile falling into something that Hinata _wants_ to call a smirk. “But I’m not here to talk about your setter, I’m here to talk about you.” 

Hinata is not a complete idiot. He’s a little oblivious, yes, and he does stupid stuff like put his shoes on the wrong foot, circle all the answers on a test off-set by one, sleep in his binder, or even drink juice about a decade past the expiration date. He’s a little dumb sometimes, earning the title _dumbass_ from Kageyama, but he knows that the smiley-smirk-thing on Sora’s face is definitely the kind of thing that turns into flirting. 

So he stutters a bit when he says, “A-are we now? And why are we talking about me?” He’s got his back pressed up against the gym door now, his eyes big and his heart doing some sort of warm up routine that consists of a million erratic jumps in his chest cavity.

“I’ve seen how you watch Kageyama-kun,” Sora purrs, and now he’s so close that Hinata can see that his left eye is greener than his right one, which is much closer to ocean blue. “And last year, I saw how flustered you were in the moments we were alone.” 

“And what does that have to do with catching me before practice?” Hinata’s breath has caught in his chest now, and there’s the memory of the smell of blue flowers swirling through his head. Could this be…? Could it have been _Sora_ who gave him those flowers? Hinata knows he went to their official matches, and he’s commented on Hinata’s playing before. He even let Hinata ramble on about volleyball during the few times they hung out outside of class. So…

“Shouyou, will you go on a date with me?” 

Hinata wants to run. Or hide. Or jump in the air and scream. Instead–

 

_“Okay!”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao   
> so there was like,, a full month between be writing chapter one and this  
> so if the quality dropped and the style changed  
> blame that month

Dating, as it turns out, isn’t as great as Hinata thought it would be. The biggest changes are at lunch and after school, because now he apparently has to eat lunch with Sora every day, and Kageyama stops tagging along after week one. After school, there’s no race to the gym, there’s walking Sora to the gate and awkward hugs and a sendoff wave. He still gets to walk home with Kageyama, walking his bike for the first fifteen minutes, dragging his feet the way he knows Kageyama does too. (After all, Kageyama takes the long route home. It’s just things they do, to stay in each other’s company.) But there’s also the weekend dates, where Sora flings an arm around his shoulder and they smile and laugh and even hold hands, sharing ice cream and ramen and laughing when Hinata gets rice on his nose. The whole thing is fun, but it’s not as mind blowing as he imagined. There aren’t really sparks, and isn’t that how a new relationship is supposed to feel? 

There’s also no… actual kissing. Sora has kissed his cheek, and he even kissed Sora’s cheek once. But it sticks to that, hand holding, and sitting close together at lunch. Hinata is pretty touchy feely with everyone, so he doesn’t think twice about touching Sora. But then there’s the way Sora’s hands sometimes trail down his back or along his sides, and Hinata has to think about not edging away. It’s nice, getting someone who will play with his hair (gently) and who always greets him with a hug, but still, Hinata feels like he’s wearing his shoes on the wrong feet.

Kageyama stops being within grabbing distance after week one, and disappears after week two. It’s like Hinata suddenly lost his shadow, because the world still works exactly the same, only Kageyama isn’t there to punch him or scold him or drag him to class by the front of his uniform. Hinata  _ knows  _ that three is a crowd, but he can’t help it if he feels a little lonely. Kageyama  _ is  _ his best friend, after all, and suddenly, he only sees him at practice and while walking home. 

The bouquets vanish. Their disappearing act is sudden. Which makes sense, seeing as if they were from Sora, the confession and dating would put an end to them. But Hinata still pulls out the cards, or peeks at the few flowers he has pressed in the back pages of his math textbook. They sort of feel like a secret. 

Three weeks and four days after he and Sora start dating, he tells Sora, “You know, I really like flowers!” 

Three weeks and five days after he and Sora start dating, he receives his tenth bouquet.

It is mostly pink, the flower petals small and creased, some of the blooms still tightly closed. There are a few green, glossy leaves sticking out, and a curly vine on the edge that Hinata wraps around his finger. It’s held in clear plastic, tied with a singular, wide yellow ribbon. 

He stares at it. So post-confession bouquets are different than pre-confession bouquets? Huh. 

“Thank you, Sora-kun!” he trills, brilliant smile turned up to the other boy, fingers a little stiff around the base of the bouquet. 

“You’re welcome, Shouyou.” 

(Something is off, and Hinata misses blue petals and white paper and silver ink.)

Hinata doesn’t put the flowers in water when he gets home, like he used to do with his bouquets. He sticks them on his desk, and they’re wilted two mornings later. No thought goes into sweeping them into the trash another two days after the petals turn brown at the edges and the buds start to lose their tension, but not in the way that signals blooming. 

He and Kageyama are still the perfect pair on court. Hinata takes comfort in that, slipping away from the weirdly tense calm that is his own relationship to lose himself in the smack of a ball against his palm, the squeaks of shoes on the floor, the white noise of chatter and echoes in the gym. On court, they are perfect. 

Off court, they’re uncomfortable. Kageyama’s sentences always feel like they’re incomplete, and he drinks less milk than usual, which Hinata  _ knows  _ is a bad sign. They can’t seem to find their easy flow, and even walking home together starts to feel awkward, until Kageyama turns off early, and takes his old route home. Hinata texts Kenma something vague, and wakes up with his phone pressed to his ear and his back aching from the tension of his binder, still hidden underneath a uniform he never changed out of. 

A month has gone by since Hinata started dating Sora, and that is when he realizes that Kageyama is absent from his life enough to start to hurt. It was an itch before, an uncomfortable sensation of wrongness, but now watching Kageyama turn to take the shorter way home makes Hinata wanna yell at him to relieve the tightness in his heart. He hates seeing Kageyama eat lunch with the second years, or with Tsukishima and Tadashi. But then he’s being pulled over to Sora’s side, and everything feels off and Hinata absolutely hates it.

One month, one week, and one day after Sora asks Hinata out is the day he also tries to kiss him.

They’re at lunch, alone in the back of the school, with Hinata’s legs over Sora’s and their empty lunch boxes set aside.  

“–And then you wouldn’t  _ believe  _ what Tadashi dared all the first years to do, I mean this had Tanaka and Noya-senpai laughing, they–” Hinata’s chatter is shut off when he feels a hand slip up his thigh to his hip, resting there gently as another comes to cup his cheek. 

Sora’s eyes are liquid emerald, pouring into Hinata’s in a way that definitely isn’t pretty, not in the way Kageyama’s are. He’s close, it’s too fast, and his mouth is slightly parted when he leans forward. 

Hinata almost,  _ almost  _ lets him get close enough. 

Except that then, the hand that was on his hip is sliding to his chest, and he bolts. 

He leaves his lunch, his bag, his uniform jacket, all of it next to Sora when he sprints off to the clubroom, closing the door and flopping over with an annoyed sigh. He’s annoyed, because he’s made it obvious he’s not ready for kissing, and Sora is one of the few people who should  _ know  _ not to go around and feel up his chest good  _ grief–  _

Of course, the door opens, and it’s Kageyama standing there. Kageyama, stupid, beautiful Kageyama, with Hinata’s bag over one shoulder. 

“Dumbass. You forgot this.” 

Hinata looks up at him from his place on the floor in the corner, and his smile is genuine, sparkling bright. “Thanks, Kageyama! Did Sora give it to you? I was in such a hurry, I completely spaced on grabbing my stuff!” 

Kageyama just stares at him, those sharp eyes pinning him in place. He holds the gaze, because Hinata doesn’t back down when it comes to Kageyama. Instead, Kageyama is the one to shift and break the contact. 

“Just remember it in the future. I’ll see you at practice,” he grumbles, and he’s gone before Hinata can thank him or grab him or do really much of anything. But that wasn’t an uncomfortable exchange, Hinata realizes. That felt a little closer to how they’re supposed to be. It makes him breathe easier, and his step is light as he heads to class.

That day ends in a talk with Sora, an apology, and walking home with a weight off of his shoulders. Hinata’s first relationship lasts for one month, one week, and one day. 

The tenth bouquet (the kind that matters) shows up two and a half weeks later, the morning after they come back from a practice match against Nekoma. (Karasuno won three of five games. Hinata slept against Tadashi on the bus, while Tsukishima sat with Coach Ukai, but Kageyama walks him home again. They’re not entirely back to being the same, but lunch and walking home are, once again, done side by side.) Hinata shows up early, earlier than anyone else in the club, and is sleepy and bleary-eyed and too bushy tailed from bedhead to be paired with bright eyes just yet. 

It’s exactly the same. It makes Hinata’s fingers itch to pull it from his locker, quickly pulling out the notecard stuck in the soft petals. And then, as soon as he reads it, he drops the whole thing, card, bouquet, and all.

On the card, written in the same ink and the same handwriting, there is no sweet compliment. No cheesy romance pick up line. Nothing volleyball related. 

The tenth bouquet’s note reads:  _ I think I’m in love with you, Hinata Shouyou, and I have no idea how to tell you.  _ (This is the longest phrase yet, and the only to use his name. It makes Hinata’s heart stop, and this is the first time someone has ever confessed their love for him.  _ Love.  _ And he knows, he  _ knows  _ this isn’t from Sora. Something in his chest just screams at him to hear a name, but he’s deaf to his own heart.)

Hinata entirely plans on hiding this bouquet from him team by just throwing it  _ deep  _ in a trash bin, because using his name, the big word, the fact the bouquets have finally returned? It’s all too much. But right as he picks the bouquet up from the floor of the clubroom, something small and round and shiny gold falls from the pretty petals and goes bouncing across the floor.  

A button. A button falls out of his bouquet, a small tail of black thread trailing after it. Hinata snatches it up quickly, and it only takes a second for him to see that it matches the one on the sleeve of his school uniform. It’s not exactly an exciting detail, but a missing button? Surely he can find someone without a button on their uniform that he knows well enough that those notes would make sense! 

It is not, as it turns out, that easy. The entire club wears their club jackets, Hinata included. His classmates all seem to be just fine. He even sneaks into Kageyama’s class for lunch, receiving a one hand jab from Kageyama and a shove, because Kageyama is “busy” with “homework.” (It’s actually a likely excuse, since they are third years now, and homework became pretty important pretty quickly, after they realized they needed to pass entrance exams for university.) 

Hinata holds the button in his palm all day long, not telling a soul, not even Kenma, not Yachi, not Tadashi, and  _ definitely  _ not Kageyama. He goes home with it in his pocket, boring a hole against his thigh as he bikes up the mountain with every ounce of fury and frustration he can muster. 

The next morning brings nothing but more hopeless hunting. Everyone seems to have their buttons sewn on, everything is fine, and Hinata is really confused.

The previous bouquets had been spaced by a week. Only… a week goes by. And there is no eleventh bouquet. But the day is not eventless. The clue that brings Hinata to his answer comes late in the day, when he and Tadashi are cleaning up the clubroom after practice, on the day they stay behind and everyone else goes ahead, and Hinata trips over Tadashi’s bag. The contents go flying, papers and a pencil and some pens and training schedules, as well as a small, plastic box, and that is what catches Hinata’s attention. His mother has one of those. 

“Is this a sewing kit?” he asks, almost hesitantly. A sewing kit.. to sew on a new button… He’s suddenly praying that he’s wrong, because everyone knows it’s Tadashi and Tsukki, and it’s obvious between them, isn’t it?

“Oh, yes!” Tadashi rubs the back of his neck as a light blush speeds across his freckled cheeks. “Kageyama needed it last week, said he lost a button and needed help sewing on a replacement! I forgot it’s still in there, it’s so small…” 

Hinata’s entire world (literally) snaps into focus. 

“You said.. Kageyama lost a button? A week ago?” 

“Yes? I gave him my spare. He wouldn’t say how, though…” 

Hinata is running before he hears all of that sentence. He’s running without his bag, running because Kageyama left today, without waiting, which is understandable, given the awkwardness since Sora. Hinata is running at top speed, past his bike, out the gate, down the road he knows Kageyama will take. It could take half an hour or five minutes, Hinata has no idea, but when Kageyama’s dark figure comes into view, Hinata’s speed doubles and he skids to a halt in front of his best friend, his setter, his–

“Kageyama!” he shrieks, out of breath and flushed bright red, his chest heaving and his shoulders shaking and his cheeks hurting from his smile, so wide, so big, so hopeful.

“What the hell, you dumbass?! What are you doing here, did you leave Yamaguchi to clean all by himself?!” Even Kageyama’s sharp tone does nothing to affect Hinata’s happiness. 

“Do you remember when you said we could be invincible together?” Hinata blurts, because it’s the first thing he can say on instinct, even if Kageyama probably has no memory of it. 

Kageyama’s blush is marvelous as it covers his cheeks, and he sputters as he says, “D-dumbass, shut up! That was a naive promise made by some dumb first year. I just meant we would make a good team, with your speed and my toss and uh… Yeah…” 

Hinata takes a deep breath, then spews out his questions in rapid fire. 

“Do you wanna spend forever with me? Do you like my smile and my chatter? Have you always thought I’m an ace? Am I like the winning moment at Nationals?” And then lastly, spoken to a speechless Kageyama who has gone absolutely frozen, “Kageyama Tobio, are you in love with me?” 

There is absolute silence. Kageyama is frozen, he looks petrified. But it’s only for a heartbeat, before his shoulders relax and he lifts his chin, giving a short nod.

“Yes.” 

Hinata looks at him with the purest of adoration, and his eyes would be sparkling with a thousand stars and a thousand suns, if they could. He’s sweaty from running, a chill is racing up his back from the sweat drying their in the cooling evening air, and he’s not entirely sure that his heart and lungs are currently doing their job. But his footing is strong, and he slips his hand into his pocket to grab a golden button, pulling it out and offering it up to Kageyama. 

“Kageyama Tobio,” Hinata breathes, before taking a breath and standing up as high as his full height goes, to look Kageyama straight into his dark, gentle, blue eyes. 

“Kageyama Tobio, I am entirely certain that I am in love with you!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there we go kids, the worst fic ive ever written  
> who wants to punch me on tumblr @ sunnysharkie  
> also someone talk makoharu to me bc i just watched starting days  
> and  
> well  
> im rekt

**Author's Note:**

> chapter two goes up tomorrow   
> it's 2.5k instead of a measly 1.9  
> im personally ashamed of myself for even thinking about this  
> who wants to punch me a little


End file.
